Rinderpest emergency declared in East Africa

Risk of rinderpest epidemic
spread
from southern Kenya, January 1997

A major epidemic of rinderpest, a
highly contagious and deadly disease that afflicts cattle
and other cloven-hoofed animals, has spread across most of
southeastern Kenya and is spilling into Tanzania. According
to a special report released by FAO in mid-February, cases
of rinderpest have been detected within 50 km of the
world-famous Serengeti and Ngorongoro wildlife reserves.

If the epidemic is not checked, it could wreak severe
economic and ecological damage across much of eastern and
southern Africa. Many countries in the region have
established profitable meat export businesses, based on the
fact that their herds have been free of rinderpest and
foot-and-mouth disease. Tourism attracted by the world's
richest congregation of large wild mammals - such as
giraffes, zebras, elephants and lions - represents another
major source of income and foreign exchange.

The area in which the outbreak is occurring is also
suffering from a severe
drought, which greatly increases the danger that the
disease will spread widely.

"In times of drought, pastoralists move their animals out
of the traditional range in search of grazing and water,"
FAO expert Mark Rweyemamu explained. "This increased
mobility is bringing rinderpest into contact with completely
susceptible populations of wildlife and unvaccinated
livestock and will, unless checked, sweep through Tanzania
and on into southern Africa."

While domestic animals could be vaccinated, the threat to
the region's wildlife is especially alarming. Rinderpest
epidemics have devastated cattle, buffalo and wildlife
species over the past century. A rinderpest pandemic at the
turn of the century wiped out as much as 90 percent of all
cattle in Africa south of the Sahara.

Domestic
cattle being vaccinated against
rinderpest

Coordinated actions by southern African countries
eliminated the disease from the Cape of Good Hope to central
Tanzania in the 1930s. More recently, the Pan African
Rinderpest Campaign (PARC) has made great progress in
controlling rinderpest on the rest of the continent.

In July 1996, a consultation of FAO's Emergency
Prevention System for Transboundary Animal and Plant Pests
and Diseases (EMPRES) declared most of Africa
rinderpest-free. The scene was set for final eradication of
the disease.

But the situation has changed for the worse dramatically
in recent months, according to a recent EMPRES report.
Investigations at the end of 1996 confirmed that rinderpest
had reached southern Kenya. Studies carried out in January
and February 1997 show that the disease has continued to
spread, with cases detected in cattle near the border with
Tanzania.

FAO officially classified the outbreak as a disaster at
the beginning of February and launched an appeal for a
multidonor emergency trust fund to tackle the current
epidemic and reinforce efforts to eradicate the disease.